The proposals seem rather inconsistent with human nature. In the first place, one never knows when one will need the assistance of others… but extended families or tribes used to fill that gap, albeit not without the imposition of some control. Ultimately, about the worst fate that one could suffer would be to become an outcast. It’s these intermediate level associations that really prevent the enlargement of the state. Arendt called them “mediating institutions.”

So, you can’t actually make a decision to be unbound, without simultaneously making yourself impotent. We’ve got some rather romantic and inappropriate notions about what freedom is, and what it gives us. Absolute freedom would mean the absence of purchase. Think walking on the ice wearing ice shoes. There is effectively no difference between complete freedom and complete bondage. Both entail total impotence.

We could also define the mission of the state as the support of independent capital acquisition, and the establishment of estates that would make people independent. This would require some rather unfamiliar changes to banking and finance, but it’s not so exotic that it slips the bonds of human nature. It’s a doable thing. Many of the retirement instruments established by Patrick Moynihan move things in this direction.